A boy grown into a man
by Linneagb
Summary: After thirteen years Ryan is finally going to meet his mum on his 18th birthday to actually be able to talk to his mum. But of course his friends couldn't let him go on his own- Ryan might have grown up. Maybe enough to actually accept the help from a friend. *Happy birthday Justice237*


**Well, for now I don't know if I'm going to have this finished and up before then but if I do then well, happy birthday to Justice237. **

Ryan Reeves had been riding by bus many times.

That was no surprise.

His way from where he lived and into the downtown of Newcastle, England wasn't very long. But for a teenager it seemed much longer and the times he'd been going the five minutes back and forth where quickly rising.

"Look here."

Ryan was just about to leave for one trip he was making into downtown, just about to give a few pieces of sugar for his favorite horse- a Shetland pony named Cutie first.

"Don't tell Richard I gave you this." Ryan got on his knees to feed Cutie. "It'll be our secret, right?"

Cutie nodded as if she agreed.

"Don't tell who?"

Ryan hadn't quite seen the mentioned standing right behind them and Cutie almost seemed to laugh where he stood. Ryan gave a smirk but glared at Cutie while he got onto his feet again and politely met Richard.

"What have I told you about giving Cutie sugar?" Ryan stuttered something when the adult in front of him looked strict and angry, and then suddenly answered. "And have you ever tried to speak strictly about someone named Cutie?" Richard held him a big carton wrapped in Winnie The Pooh- wrapping paper. "Happy birthday Ryan."

Ryan, with a forced smile took the carton and put it on a table so he could unwrap it all at once. He was about to but stopped in his tracks when he noticed he way Richard stood and stared at him.

"What? You're not just kicking me out of here because of my birthday?"

"What do you think?" One of the horse riders of the place walked by and patted Richard's shoulder.

"When I turned eighteen I wasn't allowed to take a step over the threshold here for the whole day… That might be a bit hard considering you live here but you're not allowed to do anything else for anything. And not for Cutie neither. So get lost."

Ryan had forced on a smile that was so big his cheeks started cramping. So not to show how he really felt about his birthday he looked down on the present and wrapped it to find a pair of riding gloves, a blue halter that would suit Cutie, a special bag that had room for all brushes he could use and a riding whip.

Ryan took the whip and weighed it into his hand. He knew very well these weren't meant to harm a horse but to simply show who was in charge. But he had just seen so much…

"Never will I ever use one of these."

It was half a whisper half a whimper and Ryan looked up to see neither Richard nor Lucy had heard him. He didn't want to be ungrateful…

"Now Cutie." He laid the whip to the side and took the halter that had a metal badge with "Cutie" on it. "Won't this look great on you? Won't it suit with…?"

Ryan didn't get very far, only half a step when Richard had laid his hand on his chest and pushed Ryan backwards.

"If I understand this right you don't typically like your birthday." Ryan gave a shrug- he wasn't about to tell his boss about all of his sad childhood. "And then I also heard there was someone in certain you were going to meet right in this moment?"

Ryan hesitated, then nodded with another forced smile.

"Well, I could tell that this gift was from us and also your friend Charlie. But you can leave that here and go. I know there was someone you were going to meet…"

"How did you… ?" Ryan didn't finish the question but started taking his new things to get them to their right places. But Richard didn't have time for any of that.

"Charlie who heard it from your sister who heard it from Mike who heard it from you. Those things you can leave here. They won't go anywhere. now go, number nine leaves in just a minute from the stop behind the stable." He pointed with his thumb. "But… I think there will be a surprise very soon." Richard smirked in a way that wasn't like him at all.

Ryan had a lump in his stomach and chest.

Eighteen years old and he was finally, thirteen years later going to get justice form what had bothered every birthday he could remember…

Number nine, ten and 48 of the buses drove right by the stables and into the town. Number nine took the quickest way- Ryan wasn't sure he needed or wanted the quickest way today though.

Because he knew, at a café in town, waiting for him was the one and only Sarah Reeves, his mother.

He knew he had told Chloe, but how the rest- including Richard had found out he did not know and wouldn't have wanted it to either. This was something in between himself and his mum, nobody else.

Sarah would be waiting, and for the first time since Ryan could remember they would sit down together and talk. Sure they had talked that day she came back. But it ended up more crying and shouting.

Ryan could never understand or forgive everything or anything Sarah had done. But with talking, calmly. Maybe they could get to a point it didn't bother him in the way it had. In the way it haunted him day and night and caused nightmares that made him afraid to fall asleep.

"What on…"

There was a car standing at the bus stop. It wasn't that Ryan was in a rush, but he had always been annoyed of driver that just stopped like that. And also jumped and leaned down when the driver honked at him.

"Damn…" He leaned down to look through the window. "What did you that… Mike?"

A bald man who Ryan knew very well sat in the driver's seat and Ryan couldn't say he knew about this a little piece.

But what he did know was that the bus just came going around the corner.

"Well son. Either you can wait for it or you let me give you a ride, which one will you choose?"

Ryan only hesitated for half a second before he ripped the door open, jumped into the side seat and got in. Thankfully the man beside him could start driving before the bus pulled up and the driver annoyed.

"What are you doing here?"

Mike geared and hm'd as if searching for the right words.

"Well, we sort of thought that with what is going on today… Anyone of us should be close in case something goes wrong. Because you're meeting your mum and we can imagine… well. We can't imagine how that will end. But we decided that someone should come with you. But that if we tell or ask you you wouldn't want to. Chloe was going to come but then Sarah would recognize her. So I'm going to put on a wig and a fake moustache and it's going to be fine. Now, happy birthday Ryan. Oh… I have some gifts for you too." Mike pointed with his thumb to a couple of bags that laid in the back seat. "I know you don't like your birthday so I'm not going to ask about it but… how have you been doing since you left? Have you had anything to eat? Anywhere to live? Because if you don't, you can always come back to the dumping ground- you know that, right?"

Ryan knew that. And Mike knew that Ryan still was going to get to that point. Even though Ryan had practically told Mike or Chloe or anybody else back at the dump about anything,

"Well, over the stables, there's a small flat from God knows what century. I can live there, and paying with working with the horses as much as I can… And in a stable, there's just so much to do that one never thinks about… And you've got these big horses making certain jobs and retired. And then there are the little ones that have made other jobs and each of them has a name and a job and a personality. And I have a favorite and her name is…"

Ryan silent when Mike turned by a street light and turned in he side of the town. Mike could only take a second off the road to look at Ryan and the young boy was pale and stiff.

If Ryan just remembered the road he'd made since he first knew Mike and the others…

"Could you have seen this all of those years ago? With Mischief and the whole story and God knows everything? Now you're an adult, turning eighteen so legally. You're spending your days with horses.. I have to say I prefer to spend my time with this new Ryan… And the old Ryan would never have let us know about this so we could help."

"Well, the old Ryan didn't have Chloe to snitch."

Ryan tried to make a joke but Mike knew there was nothing funny beneath it. And when they got out of the car and Ryan pointed out the correct café where Sarah was waiting Mike knew how Ryan's heart was beating and how his stomach was churning so to the point he felt like throwing up. Or at least he wished he knew, if he did he might have been able to know how to help him.

"Come on son." Mike patted Ryan's shoulder as they walked up the last few meters to the door to the café where Sarah- the woman who'd destroyed so much of Ryan's whole childhood was waiting. And he knew there would be no hesitating now or Ryan would turn and run away.

And Mike looked back another time, thought back to the little boy who had walked into the dumping ground that day, And to this young man who had been through so much that words could never tell.

He could never have done this those years ago.

He could never have stepped through the door as Mike held the door open pretending to be just a stranger and both of their eyes scanned over the small café. Ryan for Sarah, and Mike for an empty table where he could pretend to be somebody he wasn't.

But he never got so far.

"Ryan."

The name who was mentioned- or more slurred sent flashbacks through the teenager. When his mum… no, his mother, never his mum tried to take a few, stumbling steps forward he backed away twice as many steps as she could take.

"No… My son… you don't get it. This day isn't easy for me neither. It was the day my children got taken away from me. I had Chloe with me but… it was never the same."

More flashbacks were sent through on the inside of Ryan's eyelids. Nonetheless when he accidentally backed right into a chair and it was sent banging to the floor, the heavy metal making a loud noise towards the concrete floor.

And it seemed everything was just meant to be going wrong for Ryan that day, because a child that was right nearby screamed on the top of her lungs. She wasn't near the chair and she wasn't hurt…

But Mike was the only one who saw the look in Ryan's eyes when he started hyperventilating, sent back to that day thirteen years ago.

"I think you better leave now."

A waiter had quickly made his way over to the son and mother. Now when none of them moved he grabbed Ryan by the shirt with one hand, and Sarah's shirt in the other.

And Mike could do nothing else but watch as the mother and son were thrown out the door and right side by side.

"Here." Mike pulled up his wallet and got out all the cash he had for the moment that he threw at the waiter. "Keep the change. RYAN?"

The mentioned stood still, watching and breathing heavily at the sight of his mother leaned against the wall throwing up from the poison running through her veins.

"Ryan…" Mike hesitated, pulled up a napkin from his pocket and handed it to Sarah, there was no point with pretending now. "Ryan…"

Ryan still stood tall up and watched his mother, Mike turned and then back to Ryan. For a moment the ran through his mind how true it was that children would grow up to become smaller versions of their parents.

Well Ryan wasn't going to.

"You don't get what it's like." Sarah croaked still leaning against the wall and not looking towards her son. "I couldn't relax. I was just going to have a sip so I was able to but then I had another one, and the whole bottle and…"

Sarah clutched her stomach, Mike wasn't so sure what to do- he wasn't about to leave Ryan in this but what could he do except for just wait until Ryan had said what he wanted. What he needed.

"See this mum…" Ryan said all of a sudden. "This is why we can't have a relationship… You care for you, and you care for that… poison. But you never changed and it never changed that you'd choose that in front of me and Chloe. So you've proven your point. Proven that you can't change. I… I hope you have a good life no matter how it turns out."

And then, Ryan Reeves turned around and, still holding his head up high walked away.

"Ryan… wait."

Mike sent one glance towards Sarah as if to make sure she didn't choke on her own vomit. Then he ran after the boy, followed in every step without a word. He just needed to follow and keep his pace so Ryan didn't disappear.

But Ryan ran faster and faster for every step and turned straight up to the bus station, ran up to the nearest bus stop. Held his card to the machine in the front and then the doors closed.

"NO."

Not a second too late Mike knocked on the window and the bus driver let go of the pedal again. Mike flew up but didn't have a pass like Ryan's so it took longer for him and by the time he could run into the bus Ryan had disappeared up the stairs.

"Ryan?" Mike got quite a weird few glances when he came upstairs calling the one name. "Ryan?"

At last he found the boy, sat in the very front with the biggest windows on the second floor. Mike flew down on the seat next to the boy. But having ran, and Mike's condition wasn't as good as when he was Ryan's age. By the time the bus had turned into the big, main roads he could finally let his voice be heard.

"I don't… Wow…"

And now when he did, he didn't have any words. But the pictures of the memory and Sarah and Ryan at the café, outside, every single memory…

"I could never imagine what you must be feeling right now. But I think the old Ryan… The person you were earlier in your life wouldn't have taken the chance to even give her another chance. Instead you did, and you stood up tall both this time and earlier, at your old flat…"

The good thing with being on the bus and not driving was that I could look at Ryan and not on the road, and when I turned towards him I could see tears rolling down his cheeks.

"The old Ryan never would have anyone- the very last me, see the tears."

In annoyance the young man wiped the tears coming down his cheeks away with the back of his hands. Then, as he realized there were new ones he laid a hand on the window sill and watched the world pass by outside.

"Well the old Ryan's gone." He mumbled at last after several minutes of silence. And then looked back at Mike- who too had seemed to change these last few years. "And it's time for this new Ryan to live his life… And the new Ryan's going to start with putting a new halter on his best friend Cutie. And… the new Ryan just got on a bus he doesn't have a clue where it's heading."

Mike looked around and suddenly remembered about that he'd forgotten something- Ryan's birthday presents in the back seat of the car.

"Well." He showed a shrugged. "I'm not your care worker anymore so I don't have to check every person that comes in contact with you. But I'd still like to meet this Cutie- what is she like as a person?"

And outside what must have been Ryan Reeves' ten thousand's bus ride. The world just passed them by.

The rest could wait for later.

**Random fact **

I think my favorite part of this chapter was calling alcohol poison… I might use that again. It's destroyed many lives hasn't it?

No, my favorite part of the story must be Cutie.

**The lines when Mike are watching Ryan as he stands seeing his mother throwing up and knowing exactly what she did when he saw her all those years ago is briefly inspired by a part of a video I used to watch like ten years ago. It's on Youtube, it's called "Children see. Children do" And is put up by a channel called jab513. Amongst other clips there's a mum throwing up (possibly from alcohol) while a little girl does the same. And I won't tell you more but go watch that video guys. It is absolutely amazing. **

**Oh, and one last happy birthday to Justice237. Happy birthday my friend, and I also can gratis på födelsedagen and glaturerer med dagen. **


End file.
